ArticleBJPsych open2019
Dimensional anhedonia and the adolescent brain: reward and aversion anticipation, effort and consummation.
Article in BJPsych open, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Great Expectations: A Critical Review of and Suggestions for the Study of Reward Processing as a Cause and Predictor of Depression.Biological psychiatry · 2021Pooled it
- Assessing anhedonia in Chinese healthy and depressed adolescents: reliability, validity, and clinical utility of the anhedonia scale for adolescent.BMC psychiatry · 2026Article
- Dimensional Anhedonia Rating Scale (DARS) Turkish Version: Examination of Psychometric Properties in Depressed and Ultra-High Risk/Psychotic Adolescents.The Psychiatric quarterly · 2026Article
- Anhedonia is associated with computational impairments in reward and effort learning in young people with depression symptoms.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
- A Systematic Review: Investigating Biomarkers of Anhedonia and Amotivation in Depression and Cannabis Use.JAACAP open · 2025Review
- Anticipation and Motivation as Predictors of Leisure and Social Enjoyment and Engagement in Young People With Depression Symptoms: Ecological Momentary Assessment Study.JMIR mental health · 2025Article
- Weighing the predictive role of neural factors for adolescent anhedonia in the presence of demographic and clinical factors.Journal of mood and anxiety disorders · 2025Article
- Differential benefits of internet-based behavioral activation (iBA) for adolescents with high vs. low reward probability: a secondary analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Family functioning and dysfunctional attitudes mediate the link between childhood maltreatment and nonsuicidal self-injury in depressed college students: a moderated mediation model of anhedonia.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Anticipatory and consummatory pleasure in avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder.Journal of eating disorders · 2023Article
- Transdiagnostic considerations of the relationship between reward sensitivity and psychopathological symptoms - a cross-lagged panel analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2023Article
- Anhedonia in Relation to Reward and Effort Learning in Young People with Depression Symptoms.Brain sciences · 2023Article
- The role of anhedonia in predicting risk-taking behavior in university students.Journal of psychiatric research · 2022Article
- Altered motivation of effortful decision-making for self and others in subthreshold depression.Depression and anxiety · 2022Article
- Neural function underlying reward expectancy and attainment in adolescents with diverse psychiatric symptoms.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2022Article
- What Role Does the Prefrontal Cortex Play in the Processing of Negative and Positive Stimuli in Adolescent Depression?Brain sciences · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundGiven the heterogeneity of depression the Research Domain Criteria Framework suggests a dimensional approach to understanding the nature of mental illness. Neural reward function has been suggested as underpinning the symptom of anhedonia in depression but how anhedonia is related to aversion processing is unclear.
aimsTo assess how the dimensional experience of anhedonia and depression severity relate to reward and aversion processing in the human brain.
methodWe examined adolescents and emerging adults (n = 84) in the age range 13-21 years. Using a dimensional approach we examined how anhedonia and depression related to physical effort to gain reward or avoid aversion and neural activity during the anticipation, motivation/effort and consummation of reward and aversion.
resultsAs anhedonia increased physical effort to gain reward decreased. As anhedonia increased neural activity decreased during effort to avoid in the precuneus and insula (trend) and increased in the caudate during aversive consummation. We found participants with depression symptoms invested less physical effort than controls and had blunted neural anticipation of reward and aversion in the precuneus, insula and prefrontal cortex and blunted neural activity during effort for reward in the putamen.
conclusionsWe show for the first time that both physical effort and neural activity during effort correlate with anhedonia in adolescents and that amotivation might be a specific deficit of anhedonia irrespective of valence. Future work will assess if these neural mechanisms can be used to predict blunted approach and avoidance in adolescents at risk of depression.
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